The plan was simple: we wanted to get to know the new dCS SACD player, the VIVALDI ONE. In December 2013, we were listening to the new at the time, four-box Vivaldi prepared by dCS and presented to us by the sales director, Raveen Baava. The device left unforgettable impressions, so listening to the one-box version of this dCS was for us sort of natural consequence of this experience (meeting # 92).

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the company, dCS prepared a limited model Vivaldi One. Only 250 pieces will be made. It is a powerful device that accommodates three components from the 4-box Vivaldi system: SACD transport, digital-to-analog converter and upsampler with the audio files player module. The word clock remained a separate product. Both DAC, upsampler and file player have been upgraded since our previous encounter, they are actually more of new products. With the device user will receive a flash drive with hi-res music selected by dCS crew, sourced straight from mastering studios.

To emphasize its uniqueness, the device is available not only in black and silver, but also in gold, high-gloss black lacquer, high-gloss white lacquer and custom-made colors. The units finished with high-gloss paint, will be finished by a British specialist, HQ Lacquer, a company with over thirty years experience in this field. Each layer of precisely applied varnish is dried for many days in special conditions, which ultimately leads to mirror-smooth surface of the entire chassis. In turn, the 24-carat gold anode was entrusted to FH Lambert Ltd, a renown company specializing in decorating with precious metals.

Vivaldi One, same as the Vivaldi transport, features the Esoteric VRDS-NEO VMK-3 mechanism and the latest-generation Ring DAC. This converter appeared for the first time in dCS studio devices almost thirty years ago. Since then, it has been constantly improved and developed. Today's Ring DAC uses a digital platform that supports PCM signal up to 24-bit / 384 kHz, as well as DSD64 and DSD128 and DSD in DoP format. The Vivaldi One also supports all lossless codecs, including MQA. The DAC featured in Vivaldi One, the Ring DAC 2.0 offers twice processing power and work speed compared to previous generations.

While the 4-box Vivaldi required a separate rack, in the case of the One we decided to put it on the same shelf and anti-vibration platform as the Ayon Audio CD-35 HF Edition (02/50). We wanted to compare not only the sound of CDs, but also the latest love of our host Janusz, SACDs. The power cable and interconnects were to be the same in both cases, Siltech Triple Crown. We could use only unbalanced connection with the Ancient Audio Silver Grand Mono amplifier, because it is a single-ended design with two parallel 300B tubes per channel.

| ACT I

After a warm welcome, Raveen, a member of the Krakow Sonic Society – he has his a diploma hanging over his desk in the UK - immediately confirmed that he missed us and that he felt like he was back home, with his family. We have unpacked the player, that is, Raveen unpacked it, plugged it in to give it time to "warm up" and we started to listen to the discs we prepared using Ayon CD-35 HF Edition player, a new reference in the Janusz system. The plan was to switch players several times, listen to a few tracks and determine what types of changes we would hear. So we listened to several albums on Ayon, switched to dCS and ... a loud hum came from the speakers.

We spent the next half an hour trying out different connections, trying to determine what was causing this problem. As it turned out, the unbalanced outputs of the dCS player were to blame. It was a unit used previously at exhibitions and shows always with XLR balanced outputs. Apparently, the RCA outputs were damaged by someone but since nobody had used them before nobody knew about it.

Using of XLR → RCA adapters between the player and the amplifier would solve the issue. But we did not want to do it because such adapters degrade the sound, and we wanted to hear the dCS' full potential. After a short discussion, we decided: we're moving the party to Tomek's place. His system is completely different than Janusz's, and we did not listen to the four-box Vivaldi dCS system there, but on the other hand the presentations of the MSB player with Signature Data CD V transport and DAC V Diamond digital-to-analogue converter ( #102), and Siltech's Triple Crown cables took place there, and we knew the system really well. And above all, it uses balanced XLR connections - the Accuphase A-70 is a balanced design. To make the comparison meaningful, we took with us the CD-35 HF Edition player, which was to be the reference point for the player from the UK.

| ACT II

Stage directions

Session at Tomek's took place as planned. His system is fully balanced, so we listened to Ayon Audio and dCS players using their XLR outputs. Same as at Janusz's, there is no preamplifier in this system, so we used the volume controls in the players. The during this listening session we compared individual tracks listening to them on one and the other device (A/B comparison). It was divided into two parts: during the first we listened to dCS solo, and during the second we connected it with the external Vivaldi Master Clock (28 280 PLN), and then with the second one, Cybershaft OCXO Platinum (1000 USD), clocked at 10 MHz, a benchmark for the dCS clock. As it turned out, it was the most interesting part of the whole meeting

Scene 1, or dCS vs Ayon

RYSIEK B. | I want to thank the gentlemen from Great Britain and Lodz for letting me to participate in this amazing experience…

JANUSZ | That's an opening of the party's first secretary…

RYSIEK B. | Maybe so, but it feels right to me as I truly appreciate both the great company and unique components. I speak from the heart, just as I feel it. I just remembered the Weber-Fletcher's law about a logarithmic relation between the stimulus intensity and the sensation. When applied to our hobby it would apply to price - because we compare devices with different prices – the dCS is many times more expensive than Ayon ...

WOJCIECH PACUŁA | Sorry to interrupt, but I would suggest that we evaluate both devices forgetting about price difference, without favoring the more expensive one. After all, we are talking about very expensive, top devices and the price is a secondary factor here – in both cases we should talk about how the performance compares to: the best ones we know, to the best live concerts, etc. Be creative and fair.

RYSIEK B. | In my opinion, if we are honest towards readers, this matter should be mentioned. But OK, I will focus on the sonic properties of both players. dCS's sound is brighter, Ayon's is darker – I think we can all agree on that. I would, however, add two other aspects. The dCS shows greater timbral variation, richness of tone, but also clarity, transparency ...

JANUSZ | It seems that today, unlike in most cases, we will have to agree to disagree with Rysiek…

RYSIEK B. | …and some kind of honesty - these are things on the plus side of the dCS. On the plus side of Ayon there is musicality, gentleness and warmth of reception. Depending on the recordings we listened to, sometimes I liked dCS more, and sometimes Ayon. But if I had to choose, ultimately I would choose dCS. I remember our comparison between Ancient Audio Lektor Grand SE and Ayon. Now it seems that Ayon CD-35 HF Edition goes in different direction than both, dCS and Ancient Audio.

Similarly, Ongaku was quite different against the Ancient Audio amplifier. These were different sonic aesthetics, different philosophies of the beauty of sound. At the beginning it was difficult for me to judge them, but now I know that if I wanted better differentiated, richer and clearer colors, I would have to choose dCS. In turn, if I was content with the musicality and pleasure of listening, then my choice would be Ayon.

JANUSZ | My impression is completely different. The dCS sounded perfect for me compared with other top digital source I'd listened to so far. No player or DAC I'd listened to bested Vivaldi One, it simply outperforms all of them. Ayon for me - but I do not want to talk about what's better for now, I just want to point out the differences – is completely, completely different from all digital sources. Let me repeat, I am not talking about which is better.

The dCS, as peak achievement of the digital technique of the last several decades, simply rocks! Hats off - I am deadly seriously and completely honestly. I am truly impressed. Ayon in comparison seems to be a side branch of this evolution. This is a device, which has now become obvious, made by people who decided they didn't want to have anything to do with the digital sound, and instead they wanted something that would emulate analogue sound. I'm not sure if it succeeded completely, but it's probably the basic difference between these two devices.

dCS is brighter – it shocked me, because I've already got used to my Ayon. With Vivaldi, we get "hit" with more information. Since it is a very smooth sound, it is done in a very pleasant way. But if we go to classical music concerts, then we do not listen to information, but to the music and for me, Ayon is closer to this aesthetics.

WOJCIECH PACUŁA | But let's say it clearly – with Yello the Vivaldi One totally outperformed Ayon, it delivered more coherent, more dynamic, more refined presentation.

JANUSZ | Maybe, maybe – I'm not saying it didn't, but - I'm sorry, but it is true – I do not care about Yello, I'm interested in acoustic jazz and classical music. Let's be clear - I'm under the dCS's spell. Honestly, I have not heard anything like that before even from the 4-box Vivaldi. But ever since I own an Ayon, I think I better understand what the problem is - one needs to work on an analogue side as the digital one is already so good that it makes no sense to go deeper into it.

BARTOSZ PACUŁA | I liked dCS much more than Ayon. dCS plays smoothly, ultra smoothly. At first, I did not think it sounded brighter - its smoothness tricked me so much that at first I even thought it was actually darker. But it is true, its tonal balance is set higher. But, for me, nothing comes from Ayon's “darkness”. I believe also that Rysiek was right, and we should factor in the significant price difference...

JANUSZ/WOJCIECH PACUŁA | Perhaps we should leave it for conclusion, and now let's not take price into consideration, because it would look like as if we were trying to justify differences with the price while it is not really needed. We have two devices to compare and that's it.

TOMEK | I agree with Bartek, it's not quite like that – but I'll wait for my turn to elaborate.

BARTOSZ PACUŁA | OK, I just liked dCS much more, not to mention the remarkable remote control. And now I can say that it is not that Vivaldi One was much better in everything - there were also albums with which it did not outperform Ayon so clearly. With some of them I would be equally happy with either of these players, because both presentations sounded great. But for Yello the dCS ruled!

RYSIEK B. | I am also not interested in Yello, but for me there was also a huge difference with Joe Pass and Herb Ellis guitars – Ayon presented them in a “muddy” way while dCS delivered a perfect performance…

BARTOSZ PACUŁA | No, no – I did not perceive it this way.

JANUSZ | Rysiek, you keep repeating the same thing again and again.

TOMEK | Let me add something new, then :) I wanted to say that for me it is an amazing opportunity that the player I consider to be the best in the world suddenly and unexpectedly landed in my room, only this time in one-box version, and another one that I intended to borrow tomorrow for a private listening session as there is one more unit of Ayon in Poland. I can clearly hear a huge difference between the CD-35 HF Edition and my two-box CD-T + Stratos system - both also Ayon devices. I'm sure I'll ultimately buy this Ayon player.

RYSIEK B. | Wait, I don't understand – you're saying you like dCS, but are going to purchase Ayon?

WOJCIECH PACUŁA | If I remember correctly two or three years ago you said that you already had everything you needed and you didn't want to buy anything else :)

TOMEK | Well, yes, but everything is changing :) As for the comparison, if I had all the money in the world at my disposal, I would be in a very, very difficult situation. Both of these players sound fantastic and I like them a lot. They sound totally differently, but I would be happy with either of them. What I like about Ayon the fact that its bass is lower, deeper. Maybe sometimes it's overblown, but it's the room's fault. But I really like lowest bass - that's why I have such large speakers. With dCS, it was not so present, nor was it so well differentiated at the bottom. It did not really bother me, there was no rumble, but I want to feel and hear BASS.

For a long time I did not know in which direction the comparison was going, until the moment when I heard the vocal from the Liquid album by Recoil, a man talking about a plane crash. That made me aware of something I had expected, but I did not know when it would come out, that this vocal was nasal. It was not so natural. And with dCS he sounded completely naturally in the whole range. I agree with Janusz that Ayon adds something fantastic to the sound - something beautiful, analog, it creates beautiful, pastel layers.

Well, but dCS, although it is a truly digital device, ie clean, neutral, etc., is remarkable. I follow sonic changes in following devices from this brand, we listened to many of its devices, and I have to say that in the case of Vivaldi One, this "digital" sound is so unique that it is almost "analog". I can not point out any downsides in its performance and I could be very happy with it too. Its great advantage is an excellent preamplifier section. For me it is a tie at the highest performance level and I have a great respect for both companies.

JAROMIR WASZCZYSZYN | For me listening to these players is a lot of fun, and I'm a designer, too. In many points I agree with Janusz. Let me remind you that the first issue we had during this session was a disagreement as to how loud should we play the music - one suggested cranking up volume, other quite the opposite. This was a result of the first difference between these players, namely space. Ayon extends soundstage two-three times deeper. Because of that, the violin that we heard on Telleman was placed further away from us, listeners. And if was further away it seemed quieter. But as the voices came in, it turned out that everything was at the same volume level. Therefore, I think that Ayons layering of the soundstage is of a completely different, higher class than what dCS has to offer in this respect.

The dCS on the other hand has a fantastic advantage when it comes to width of the stage - it is huge. Vivaldi builds the width of the stage, what was obvious when we listened to Yello – everything there went crazy, lively, but as long as it happened in the front of the stage. When we listened to Yello on Ayon everything got narrower, but we could hear what was happening in the next, deeper layers of the stage. The dCS is a fantastic player that will appeal to many people and which allows you to enjoy music immensely To appreciate Ayon, you have to spend more time with it and listen to different type of music.

Where does it come from? If we were to open these players, and perhaps also my Lektor Grand, then we would see that analogue electronics take up more than half of the interior in Ayon and Grand. In dCS actually everything is digital electronics. Hence, just a quick thought, I would say that a perfect device would include this fantastic digital stage of dCS and equally advanced analogue stage. If we did that there would be nothing to discuss today, we would have something like a digital "analogue tape player". I can perfectly hear features associated with different solutions. Both are fantastic players, but for different people and different systems.

WOJCIECH PACUŁA | Maybe for the first time we are dealing with a situation where there is probably nobody who would not appreciate both devices. Clearly there are those who prefer dCS or those who'd chose Ayon, but the division is not as decisive as usually.

TOMEK | Exactly, we are discussing what could possibly be done in even better way, and not what is wrong with one player or the other, because in both cases performance is amazing!

JAROMIR WASZCZYSZYN | Yes, these are two remarkable devices!

JAREK ORSZAŃSKI | My experience with dCS says that we can get a significant performance improvement connecting an external word-clock to it, preferably two of them. They reduce jitter, so the sound gets even more detailed. In a moment we will try it and you will see that the soundstage will get closer to us, because there will be more information. What you said Jarek, that the stage with Ayon is deeper, is the result of its sound containing fewer details...

JAROMIR WASZCZYSZYN | No! It's not it!

JAREK ORSZAŃSKI | I am talking from my experience, of course, I do not want to convince anyone. It is not about the amount of treble, but the amount of micro information. And human hearing works in such a way that when it gets more of such micro-information, it subjectively "shifts" the stage forward, you will hear it when we hook up the clocks. The dynamic sound will become ultra-dynamic. I agree that Ayon's performance is beautiful and it plays music in a wonderful way. To be honest I like Ayon too, I will not deny it.

But at home I have dCS and for me the most important thing about listening to music is fun - and because I listen to completely different music than what we listened to today, using dCS gets me more fun. And I listen mainly to rock music. It suits me. This stage that goes out to the room, which causes me to become a participant of the show, these are very attractive features for me. This aspect is more important to me than building tube magic, as happens with Ayon. In my opinion, the tube reduces the amount of micro-information and soothes the transients. This causes the sound to become darker and "analogue". For me, dCS is more subtle and delicate, it is also more sophisticated.

Scene 2, or two word-clock

JAROMIR WASZCZYSZYN | My own experiences with building CD Players are coming back to me…

JANUSZ | That's what you always think about…

JAROMIR WASZCZYSZYN | Well, nothing I can do about it. But to the point - it's about the moment when for the first time I installed a TentLabs word-clock in my CD player, which produced - for those times - a very low jitter. And it reminds me of what I can hear now. When we listened to dCS the first time, I missed proper layering of the stage and separation of them. But after adding the word-clocks it finally offers everything that I value in sound. I am very happy that we could listen to the set without any word-clock, then with one, and finally with two of them. Ultimately this set reproduced a sound beyond any critic, it is perfect.

RYSIEK B. | I have to add even more compliments for dCS. Now I know, or at least I think I do, that buying Vivaldi One alone without external word-clocks is not the best way to spend one's money. One has to be able to afford the whole set at once. Improvement in musicality is significant - it has reached the level of Ayon, retaining all the advantages of dCS in terms of tone, detail, etc. The only way I can describe the improvement is a leap to the new, higher class. This is now a different device than Vivaldi One solo.

TOMEK | It suddenly turns out there is a lot of clock fans in the room :)

JANUSZ | For me listening to dCS with a clock is what it's all about. It's a full spacial sound, showing all aspects of timbre, dynamics, etc. I do not think that it became more like Ayon sound wise, it seems to me that it is a parallel path to perfection. Adding clocks caused taking an opposite direction from that of Ayon, rather towards dCS solo, ie in the direction of extending its sound by adding all those elements that it lacked before. Now dCS sounds beautiful, I want to listen to it and I want to be with it. But this is still not Ayon.

BARTOSZ PACUŁA | And I have a philosophical question: what is the point of telling people that you have managed to prepare the player in a single chassis that is the best "single-chassis-player" when actually one has to add two more boxes for it to sound as it does now? The sound of Vivaldi One solo is incomplete, one has to buy a second large box and a small third one. After that one gets to almost four boxes of the big Vivaldi. It does not make sense to me. Except that in terms of sound quality, what I heard now was outstanding. But I think about it differently than Janusz, i.e. I think adding one and then the second word-clock brought dCS closer to the musicality of Ayon, while maintaining the advantages of dCS. For me it is clearly a superior sound to that of Ayon.

TOMEK | I will just add that with these two word clocks that complete this Player as digital source, it became absolutely my dream source and I hope it will become part of my system one day.

JAREK ORSZAŃSKI | I miss the references to the increase in quality quantified in percentage with the first and second clock in your statements.

JAROMIR WASZCZYSZYN | But this is a very simple matter - what is the percentage share of Klaudia Schiffer's lashes in relation to her weight?

WOJCIECH PACUŁA | First, let me say that adding an external clock does not always lead to better sound quality - everything, as always, depends on its quality and the quality of the player itself. I remember my first auditions of the Esoteric clocks, because it's probably the first big company that offered them for home users, and depending on the source used, the sound was actually better, but sometimes also worse. The external clock is does not guaranty miraculous improvements.

This case is completely different and the thing starts to get interesting. The addition of the first clock improved many aspects of the sound which was a good thing. But only adding the second clock, in other words two clocks working together, resulted in a complete change of the concept of the Vivaldi One's sound. Finally, it sounded right for me. I really liked the solo player, it's a fantastic device and all the things you said were true. But for me personally, this type of sound is not convincing. Which is normal, because on the high-end level, if we have two top products, what matters most in not sound quality as such, but our tastes and needs.

While Yello sounded definitely better with Vivaldi, I liked all the albums with acoustic instruments more with Ayon. Maybe because I'm used to this type of presentation. Its sound was much more acceptable and natural to me. I have exactly an opposite opinion than Jarek [Orszański - ed.] on the resolution of these two devices, as I think that Ayon shows more, differentiates better. The instruments are connected, the air that is recorded, with Ayon is truly dense, sometimes even “too thick”. The dCS did it more subtly, did not go so deep into the sound. And at the same time it did it flawlessly and I agree with Janusz, who said that it is a top digital device, which in this aesthetics is - in our experience - unmatched.

The question is, therefore, which presentation is true. The answer is, unfortunately, simple: we do not know. We do not know the sound of these specific instruments, we do not know how they sounded at the concert, in the recording studio and then mastering one, we do not know the sound of the master tapes. What remains for us is an aesthetic evaluation. And that's why you can easily assume that both of us, those who chose dCS and those who prefer the sound of Ayon, are right.

And now - adding the first clock, i.e. the Vivaldi Master Clock, brought the sound of the dCS system closer to Ayon's presentation, and to what I like. For me it still wasn't – let me remind you that it is my private opinion and that we are talking about aesthetics, not quality, as the latter in both cases is remarkable - a proposal as attractive as Ayon. The sound lowered, there were less, sometimes annoying upper mid-tones, etc. The sound was not so bright any more. The addition of the second clock pushed everything even harder, even deeper in this direction. It brought the stage closer and lowered the tonal balance, it was a completely different sound.

There is still Jarek's question about the percentage share of these improvements - if it can be determined at all. But I will take a chance and say it; looking from the top high-end point of view, so "from the top", adding these two clocks is a 50% improvement. I know it sounds strange, but if we are so high on quality ladder, every percentage seen “from below” should be multiplied by ten. In fact, only after adding clocks sound became nice, pleasant, classic. With the third clock every improvement achieved with the second one is still there, but the foreground is coming forward, which is now extremely tangible and real. There is more of everything and everything gets deeper. But there were also albums with which the addition of the second clock gave a different result, for example with the Yo-Yo Ma & Bobby McFerrin record, on which the clock shifted the sound up, emphasizing the attack. It is possible, however, that it simply better extracted the own character of this recording.

The third word clock slowed down the sound – although it might not be the right way to describe what it actually did…

RYSIEK B. | Yes, that's right, it slowed down tempo…

WOJCIECH PACUŁA | No, I put it in a wrong way. Ayon does a similar thing but without slowing anything down. It seems that it slows down, because everything becomes nice, casual, because you do not have to focus strongly to hear everything precisely. The time intervals were the same, but it seemed as if the musicians had more time to play within the same time intervals, as if they did not have to hurry. And because of that they played more in a more subtle, nicer way. Returning to the percentages - adding the Vivaldi clock increased the quality by 20%. This small added as much as 30% on top of the first one, hence the 50% I talked about. For me, there is no comparison - Vivaldi itself is brilliant, but its tonal balance is set quite high, and I do not like such a sound. I'm not saying it's wrong, but I've got used to something else. And with these two clocks it became absolutely remarkable.

JAREK ORSZAŃSKI | My opinion on this subject is this: if someone buys a Vivaldi and is not completely satisfied he can add the first clock to it, which will result in dramatic improvement. But then another question arises - could I live with the knowledge that spending another, relatively small amount of money for the SECOND clock, I could have yet another significant improvement is sound quality? The answer is simple - no, I could not live with it, I would have to buy the second clock. The benefit of adding the second clock is enormous, although, objectively speaking, the increase in quality may seem small. I claim that if someone hears what this little clock does with Vivaldi, there is not a single person who could live with no clock or only one of them.

| Epilogue

The last question that should be asked is: why dCS does not make 10 MHz clocks, and an auxiliary question: why it is impossible to fit all of this into one chassis. The answer to the first one is obvious, Jarek Orszański talked about it - dCS never specialized in this type of clocks, because these are industrial clocks used, for example, for clocking transmission lines, cell phone lines, etc., in general - in communication industry. But they have always placed proper inputs in their clocks, starting with Verona, so everyone could benefit from the advantages of the 10 MHz clock. The second question also seems easy - the clock must have a separate power supply, it must be shielded, it must be physically separated so that it could be so precise.

Taking this into account, as well as what we have heard, I can say that Vivaldi One, in itself - although fantastic - is a "project at work", not a finished proposal. In order for it to achieve the full "power" it needs an external clock, or actually two. From the marketing point of view, advertising a single-chassis player is brilliant, because many people do not want to have four box system at home. This solution is also much cheaper. But one has to remember, however, that this is just the beginning and Vivaldi One will show its full potential, seducing both the fans of perfect digital sound and classic analog sound only in full configuration, i.e. with the Vivaldi Master Clock and high-end 10 MHz clock. In such configuration it will offer absolutely top performance. But then it's not actually a one-box solution anymore.